The present invention relates generally to aircraft cockpit interfaces, and more particularly to a system and method for defining tasks, patterns and constraints in an aircraft interface.
Pilots often rely upon gauges, instruments and other indicators to monitor the performance of their aircraft. Pilots also make use of a complex array of controls such as steering wheels/yoke, foot pedals, switches, computer controls, and the like to fly, navigate and otherwise control their vehicles. A pilot""s awareness and coordination of various aircraft modes and conditions is important to optimum aircraft performance and safety. For example, the pilot should be aware of the aircraft""s automation state at any given time and the pilot should be able to easily coordinate the flight director modes. Moreover, the pilot should be able to easily view and coordinate the tracking of the aircraft to current modes and targets. Many existing cockpit controls, however, which may be of the panel mounted variety or of the head up display (HUD) variety and which may be commonly found in commercial, military, and civilian aircraft, often include various systems distributed throughout the cockpit, thereby often requiring the pilot to intermittently scan various areas of the cockpit to obtain and analyze the aircraft information. Moreover, these devices often provide large amounts of data in a manner that requires a substantial amount of pilot attention to fully comprehend.
To assist the pilot, aircraft flight displays continue to advance in sophistication, achieving increasingly higher levels of information density and, consequently, presenting a greater amount of visual information to be perceived and understood by the operator. In many applications, it is often important that visual displays provide a proper cognitive mapping between what the operator is trying to achieve and the information available to accomplish the task. As a result, such systems increasingly utilize human-factor design principles in order to build instrumentation and controls that work cooperatively with human operators. Accordingly, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has promulgated a number of standards and advisory circulars relating to flight instrumentation. More particularly, Title 14 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) Part 25, Sec. 25.1321 et seq. provides guidelines for arrangement and visibility of instruments, warning lights, annunciators, and the like. Similarly, detailed guidelines related to electronic displays can be found in FAA Advisory Circular 20-88A, Guidelines on the Marking of Aircraft Powerplant Instruments (September 1985), both of which are incorporated by reference.
Further, systems integrators such as Honeywell International Inc. of Phoenix, Ariz., have built flight control systems that greatly improve the ease-of-use of avionics (i.e. aviation electronics) systems. The PRIMUS EPIC suite of avionics components available from Honeywell International Inc. of Phoenix, Ariz., for example, includes a comprehensive suite of integrated flight electronics such as flight management systems (FMS), autopilots, cockpit displays, flight controls, and the like, as well as interoperability with navigational instruments such as global positioning systems (GPS), inertial reference systems (IRS), and the like. In particular, the PRIMUS EPIC suite includes an integrated avionics display including cursor control, windowing of information, movable navigation maps, ground-based weather, real-time video, aircraft utility system display and control, and the like.
Various embodiments of the PRIMUS EPIC suite include a xe2x80x9cpoint and clickxe2x80x9d navigation capability referred to as xe2x80x9cGraphical INAVxe2x80x9d, also provided by Honeywell International Inc. of Glendale, Ariz. Various aspects of this capability are described, for example, in United States patent application xe2x80x9cMETHODS AND APPARATUS FOR REAL-TIME PROJECTION AND RENDERING OF GEOSPATIALLY ORGANIZED DATAxe2x80x9d, filed on Sep. 14, 2000, (claiming priority of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Serial No. 60/153,900, filed Sep. 14, 1999) and naming the following inventors: Mark I. Snyder, Gary Teskey, Blake W. Wilson, and Matt Hilbert, incorporated herein by reference. Another graphical flight planning system is described in U.S. Pat. Ser. No. 6,112,141, incorporated herein by reference. As part of the xe2x80x9cpoint and clickxe2x80x9d functionality incorporated within certain graphical flight planning environments, pilots are allowed to click on a map location (e.g. a waypoint) and to obtain a menu of tasks that may be executed relating to that location. To complete the definition of the task, an interface for obtaining additional information is presented to the pilot, and the pilot suitably enters information through a keyboard, mouse/cursor apparatus, keypad, or the like. To define a holding pattern about a waypoint, for example, a pilot simply clicks on the waypoint, selects xe2x80x9choldxe2x80x9d from the ensuing menu of task options, and then enters or modifies parameters such as hold radial, hold leg distance, and hold turn direction as appropriate.
Although the PRIMUS EPIC suite and INAV technology represent quantum leaps forward in avionics technology, even further enhancements to cockpit displays that allow for improved ease-of-use may be desirable. In particular, such enhancements would create interfaces for common pilot tasks that are intuitive, easy-to-use and closely related to instructions from air traffic control (ATC).
Various embodiments of the invention suitably provide dialog boxes in response to pilot commands so that task parameters may be input or modified. Pilot tasks include xe2x80x9cdirect-toxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9choldxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cprocedure turnxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9ccross constraints with flyoverxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cshow infoxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9corbitxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cradialxe2x80x9d, and the like. According to various embodiments, certain dialog boxes include graphical functionality and incorporate xe2x80x98human factorsxe2x80x99 enhancements such that information is efficiently presented in a manner that corresponds to air traffic control instructions.